Saturday, October 14, 2006
More from Patricia
As you may know, I consider Patricia my touchstone for reality, the observer who reminds me time and again of the events happening in the "real world." And although world events as such are not the primary focus of this blog, it is, I think, important to keep abreast of what is going on "outside" in this time of planetary crisis.
Here is a recent entry from Patricia's blog (www.windchimewalker.blogspot.com) in which she discerns that the pattern of global events suggests an actual breakdown of civilization itself. For that reason, she speaks of herself as "Cassandra," (the prophetess of doom in Greek mythology). And, equally important, Patricia tells us how to conduct ourselves with grace and courage during this time of unprecedented crisis.
I am printing as well the answer I wrote to her essay. As we both agreed, they offer two somewhat different yet complementary responses to a major problem.
First, Patricia's reflections:
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Cassandra's cry..
.
A friend just ended her email to me by saying, "The world is about to shift bigtime. Are you noticing what I am?"
My reply was:
"Yes, I am SO aware that we (as a global community) are teetering on the edge of a new reality. How I wish I had good vibes about what that reality will be, but I don't. There are always consequences to our actions, and I'm afraid we're about to experience the first of many such consequences. Can't say exactly what it will be but it ain't good."
This awareness/premonition has been eating at me for some time. North Korea's nuclear test just made it more tangible. And before that, seeing my nation's congressional leaders pass a bill legalizing torture for the first time ever in American history also made me think we're heading into bad waters. Not to mention what's happening in Iraq, Afghanistan and probably very soon in Iran, thanks to GW Bush & his buddies. Then there's Darfur and the genocide the world refuses to stop, Israel's US-supported siege and probable genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, their recent US-supported massacre of civilians and destruction of the infrastructure in Lebanon. There are the 11,000 child soldiers who have been abandoned in the Democratic Republic of Congo, while here at home we have New Orleans, our own abandoned city and peoples. In the past couple of weeks we've seen a rash of shootings and atrocities at schools across the country. And just today I learn that a new report from Human Rights Watch reveals that five U.S. state prison systems--Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, South Dakota, and Utah--authorize the use of large unmuzzled dogs to terrify and even attack prisoners to extract them from their cells. According to HRW, no other country in the world authorizes the use of dogs for such a purpose. I can't even begin to enumerate the abuses we humans have heaped on our fragile planet, abuses that are making life on earth less sustainable day by day.
We can no longer see these as isolated problems that need to be solved. There is something systemic going on here, something larger than the sum of its parts. I'm not fond of overstating the obvious, but it seems to me we're seeing a breakdown of civilization as we know it.
No, I am not a conspiracy theorist. I do not see some evil mastermind pulling strings behind the scenes. If that were true, something could be done to stop it. No, this is much larger than one person, one president, one dictator, one country, one ideology, one anything. It is pervasive and it is spreading.
At school we always say to the kids, "Think about the consequences before you act." Well, I wish world leaders would have done that a long time ago, because now the consequences of their actions are coming back to haunt us all. You can get away with things for awhile, but not forever. Sooner or later, the boomerang heads back in the direction from which it came. And that's where we are now. Not just Americans, although we are at the head of the pack simply because of the position of power we hold worldwide, but everybody everywhere.
So what to do? Prepare yourself as best you can. For each of us that will manifest differently. But whatever you do, don't put your head in the sand and pretend everything's going to be OK. It's not.
I'm sorry, my friends, I know this isn't pleasant to read. Believe me, it isn't pleasant to think, feel, know and write either. But I must. I can no longer try to put out a fire here and a fire there. There is a wildfire already spreading on the winds of lies, greed, arrogance, hatred and violence. I don't see how we can put it out now. All we can do is alert our communities, gather with them to map out how we are going to survive the conflagration, and dig deep within our own minds and souls to find the strength we need to endure and not to give in to hate or violence ourselves.
Do you ever find things hidden in your subconscious that only come out when you write? That's what's happened here. All this has been pushing up in fits and starts for months now. Maybe for years. But when I see it laid out like this, I know it is true. How I wish it weren't. But I know it is.
Yes, there are many glorious people doing courageous and creative things worldwide. They are islands of sanity in a sea of craziness. Their will and work will continue no matter what wildfires rage around them. Nothing will destroy what they are offering to the world. But, at the same time, being human and members of our world community, they will suffer too. We will all suffer. There's no way around that. But their suffering--our suffering--will bring purification not destruction. I guess I'm talking about the phoenix that rises from the ashes.
So, I encourage every individual to bring all of your gifts to be used for the common good. Now is the time to form community, to dream together, to work together, to create together, to heal together. This is no time to be alone. Reach out to whomever you find is like-minded, like-hearted, like-visioned. Come together and make yourselves strong and useful. There is no time to waste. Urgent is the word that comes to mind. A deliberate urgency. Find one single thing you can do; then do it. It doesn't have to be grand, just worthy. Worthy of your innate humanity, the finest part of your being, who you are at your core. Whatever you do, don't let this Cassandra's cry cause you to shrivel up in fear. Fear is useless. Less than useless: fear is at the heart of much of the violence we see around us. Don't go there. Stay centered in the light; don't go crawling around the shadows.
I'm not saying to be a Pollyanna. That would be living a lie. No, I am saying look the truth squarely in the eye, then do what you can to create the truth you want and know needs to come into being. Each of us has a piece of it that is ours to give. No one else can bring exactly what we can bring to the whole. Find it and do it. Now. Today, not tomorrow.
I'll meet you in the place of Truth, Light, Love and Courage. Heart to heart we can move mountains. I don't know exactly what that means, I just know it's true. As a Palestinian brother said to me after I'd seen the raw face of hatred during my solitary vigil for Lebanon in front of the White House, "You are not alone. There are people all over the world who stand with you." Well, that goes for each one of us. We are not alone.
(above by Patricia Lay-Dorsey)
Here is the letter I wrote her in response:
Hi, Patricia--
I really was impressed with your blog entry, and must say that I agree with about everything you say. I have in fact been thinking along these lines for a long time--it is as if we are witnessing the playing out of a drama which has been predicted in various cultures and certain writings for many years. (Mayan calendar, Yeats' predictions for our century, Apocalypse, native American prophecy, and others.)
Of course, as for me, I hold the counterbalancing notion that the world is being reconstructed from within (through spiritual/evolutionary processes) at the same time it is literally falling apart externally. I see them as parts of the same process. It is extremely painful to see your world collapse in front of you, but it is helpful to see it in the context of a larger scheme. I of course have no proof whatsoever that what I believe is true, but I guess I simply believe it because I believe it in my guts and heart, more as faith that provable fact. And I do find evidence of individual evolution occurring all around. When "Cloud" undergoes his mystical awakening, sensing love for all that is, and when he has other unexpected experiences, like suddenly seeing the auras around everything, that tells me (and him, as well) that something unexpected is indeed occurring.
I think the great challenge now is not giving in to despair and loss of hope. I think we have to find ways to be aware of what is happening, but at the same time maintain balance, accept that we are each indeed part of a larger process whose outcome we cannot fully describe nor control, doing what we can where we can to help our fellow humans, and simply accept that we are here for the purpose of participation, playing our part in the cosmic drama. I think this is indeed probably the final go-round, the last act for the civilization we have known and taken for granted for so long. The world is indeed having a nervous breakdown, a psychotic break, erupting into unimaginable violence and cruelty on all levels.
Some see what is going on, others do not. It will play out in unimaginably nightmarish ways (already is, obviously). This is karma--the result of all that has led to the present moment, beginning I think with our failure to grasp the seriousness of the issues when it was Bush vs. Gore--to vote our ideals at that moment was simply a luxury we could not afford, and if people had chosen the lesser of the two evils, we would not be in the mess we are now in.
That was when I felt like Cassandra, and in fact still do around the folks who still don't get it (what is happening in our world), don't see the connections, and probably never will--when the whole thing comes down, people will be too busy trying to survive to do any historical backtracking as to what led into this.
So--I think our first responsibility is to keep ourselves as well as possible--particularly at this stage of life. Then to do all we can to preserve what is best in our society--and to do all we can to help our world to remember what civilization is (was?) like.
This will be a roller coaster ride like no other.
Keep in touch. It is good to be connected with someone who can see so clearly what is really going on and who has given so much to the cause of trying to stem the tide.
Love,
Dorothy
Here is a recent entry from Patricia's blog (www.windchimewalker.blogspot.com) in which she discerns that the pattern of global events suggests an actual breakdown of civilization itself. For that reason, she speaks of herself as "Cassandra," (the prophetess of doom in Greek mythology). And, equally important, Patricia tells us how to conduct ourselves with grace and courage during this time of unprecedented crisis.
I am printing as well the answer I wrote to her essay. As we both agreed, they offer two somewhat different yet complementary responses to a major problem.
First, Patricia's reflections:
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Cassandra's cry..
.
A friend just ended her email to me by saying, "The world is about to shift bigtime. Are you noticing what I am?"
My reply was:
"Yes, I am SO aware that we (as a global community) are teetering on the edge of a new reality. How I wish I had good vibes about what that reality will be, but I don't. There are always consequences to our actions, and I'm afraid we're about to experience the first of many such consequences. Can't say exactly what it will be but it ain't good."
This awareness/premonition has been eating at me for some time. North Korea's nuclear test just made it more tangible. And before that, seeing my nation's congressional leaders pass a bill legalizing torture for the first time ever in American history also made me think we're heading into bad waters. Not to mention what's happening in Iraq, Afghanistan and probably very soon in Iran, thanks to GW Bush & his buddies. Then there's Darfur and the genocide the world refuses to stop, Israel's US-supported siege and probable genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, their recent US-supported massacre of civilians and destruction of the infrastructure in Lebanon. There are the 11,000 child soldiers who have been abandoned in the Democratic Republic of Congo, while here at home we have New Orleans, our own abandoned city and peoples. In the past couple of weeks we've seen a rash of shootings and atrocities at schools across the country. And just today I learn that a new report from Human Rights Watch reveals that five U.S. state prison systems--Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, South Dakota, and Utah--authorize the use of large unmuzzled dogs to terrify and even attack prisoners to extract them from their cells. According to HRW, no other country in the world authorizes the use of dogs for such a purpose. I can't even begin to enumerate the abuses we humans have heaped on our fragile planet, abuses that are making life on earth less sustainable day by day.
We can no longer see these as isolated problems that need to be solved. There is something systemic going on here, something larger than the sum of its parts. I'm not fond of overstating the obvious, but it seems to me we're seeing a breakdown of civilization as we know it.
No, I am not a conspiracy theorist. I do not see some evil mastermind pulling strings behind the scenes. If that were true, something could be done to stop it. No, this is much larger than one person, one president, one dictator, one country, one ideology, one anything. It is pervasive and it is spreading.
At school we always say to the kids, "Think about the consequences before you act." Well, I wish world leaders would have done that a long time ago, because now the consequences of their actions are coming back to haunt us all. You can get away with things for awhile, but not forever. Sooner or later, the boomerang heads back in the direction from which it came. And that's where we are now. Not just Americans, although we are at the head of the pack simply because of the position of power we hold worldwide, but everybody everywhere.
So what to do? Prepare yourself as best you can. For each of us that will manifest differently. But whatever you do, don't put your head in the sand and pretend everything's going to be OK. It's not.
I'm sorry, my friends, I know this isn't pleasant to read. Believe me, it isn't pleasant to think, feel, know and write either. But I must. I can no longer try to put out a fire here and a fire there. There is a wildfire already spreading on the winds of lies, greed, arrogance, hatred and violence. I don't see how we can put it out now. All we can do is alert our communities, gather with them to map out how we are going to survive the conflagration, and dig deep within our own minds and souls to find the strength we need to endure and not to give in to hate or violence ourselves.
Do you ever find things hidden in your subconscious that only come out when you write? That's what's happened here. All this has been pushing up in fits and starts for months now. Maybe for years. But when I see it laid out like this, I know it is true. How I wish it weren't. But I know it is.
Yes, there are many glorious people doing courageous and creative things worldwide. They are islands of sanity in a sea of craziness. Their will and work will continue no matter what wildfires rage around them. Nothing will destroy what they are offering to the world. But, at the same time, being human and members of our world community, they will suffer too. We will all suffer. There's no way around that. But their suffering--our suffering--will bring purification not destruction. I guess I'm talking about the phoenix that rises from the ashes.
So, I encourage every individual to bring all of your gifts to be used for the common good. Now is the time to form community, to dream together, to work together, to create together, to heal together. This is no time to be alone. Reach out to whomever you find is like-minded, like-hearted, like-visioned. Come together and make yourselves strong and useful. There is no time to waste. Urgent is the word that comes to mind. A deliberate urgency. Find one single thing you can do; then do it. It doesn't have to be grand, just worthy. Worthy of your innate humanity, the finest part of your being, who you are at your core. Whatever you do, don't let this Cassandra's cry cause you to shrivel up in fear. Fear is useless. Less than useless: fear is at the heart of much of the violence we see around us. Don't go there. Stay centered in the light; don't go crawling around the shadows.
I'm not saying to be a Pollyanna. That would be living a lie. No, I am saying look the truth squarely in the eye, then do what you can to create the truth you want and know needs to come into being. Each of us has a piece of it that is ours to give. No one else can bring exactly what we can bring to the whole. Find it and do it. Now. Today, not tomorrow.
I'll meet you in the place of Truth, Light, Love and Courage. Heart to heart we can move mountains. I don't know exactly what that means, I just know it's true. As a Palestinian brother said to me after I'd seen the raw face of hatred during my solitary vigil for Lebanon in front of the White House, "You are not alone. There are people all over the world who stand with you." Well, that goes for each one of us. We are not alone.
(above by Patricia Lay-Dorsey)
Here is the letter I wrote her in response:
Hi, Patricia--
I really was impressed with your blog entry, and must say that I agree with about everything you say. I have in fact been thinking along these lines for a long time--it is as if we are witnessing the playing out of a drama which has been predicted in various cultures and certain writings for many years. (Mayan calendar, Yeats' predictions for our century, Apocalypse, native American prophecy, and others.)
Of course, as for me, I hold the counterbalancing notion that the world is being reconstructed from within (through spiritual/evolutionary processes) at the same time it is literally falling apart externally. I see them as parts of the same process. It is extremely painful to see your world collapse in front of you, but it is helpful to see it in the context of a larger scheme. I of course have no proof whatsoever that what I believe is true, but I guess I simply believe it because I believe it in my guts and heart, more as faith that provable fact. And I do find evidence of individual evolution occurring all around. When "Cloud" undergoes his mystical awakening, sensing love for all that is, and when he has other unexpected experiences, like suddenly seeing the auras around everything, that tells me (and him, as well) that something unexpected is indeed occurring.
I think the great challenge now is not giving in to despair and loss of hope. I think we have to find ways to be aware of what is happening, but at the same time maintain balance, accept that we are each indeed part of a larger process whose outcome we cannot fully describe nor control, doing what we can where we can to help our fellow humans, and simply accept that we are here for the purpose of participation, playing our part in the cosmic drama. I think this is indeed probably the final go-round, the last act for the civilization we have known and taken for granted for so long. The world is indeed having a nervous breakdown, a psychotic break, erupting into unimaginable violence and cruelty on all levels.
Some see what is going on, others do not. It will play out in unimaginably nightmarish ways (already is, obviously). This is karma--the result of all that has led to the present moment, beginning I think with our failure to grasp the seriousness of the issues when it was Bush vs. Gore--to vote our ideals at that moment was simply a luxury we could not afford, and if people had chosen the lesser of the two evils, we would not be in the mess we are now in.
That was when I felt like Cassandra, and in fact still do around the folks who still don't get it (what is happening in our world), don't see the connections, and probably never will--when the whole thing comes down, people will be too busy trying to survive to do any historical backtracking as to what led into this.
So--I think our first responsibility is to keep ourselves as well as possible--particularly at this stage of life. Then to do all we can to preserve what is best in our society--and to do all we can to help our world to remember what civilization is (was?) like.
This will be a roller coaster ride like no other.
Keep in touch. It is good to be connected with someone who can see so clearly what is really going on and who has given so much to the cause of trying to stem the tide.
Love,
Dorothy
